Friday, March 2, 2018

BREAKING NEWS: David Castillo Mejia, the President of DESA, the corporation building the dam Berta was organizing against when she was assassinated, has just been arrested while attempting to flee Honduras

COPINH reports to the national and international community that moments ago David Castillo, the President of the DESA corporation and the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, was arrested thanks to all of the work and pressure created by the solidarity and work of organizations nationally and internationally. No thanks is due to the Attorney General's office, who have tried everything possible to cover up the truth in this case.

The Honduran state made this arrest to try to obscure the protests today for the 2nd anniversary of the assassination of our sister Berta Caceres. Nonetheless, from the start COPINH has denounced him as the general manager alongside the entire board of directors of the DESA corporation, which belongs to the Atala Zablah family.

COPINH will continue to denounce the entire murderous, criminal structure behind the assassination of our sister Berta Caceres, of which David Castillo is just one piece.

Friday, February 2, 2018

Almost two years after the assassination of the woman who dreamed of re-founding Honduras
COPINH's statement 23 months later[Original en español]

Today marks 23 months since the assassination of indigenous leader Berta Cáceres and we are about to reach the second anniversary of her transition. We remember this sister on these days, with many people eager to know how far the case has progressed over these two years and what has changed in Honduras with the revelation of manifold human rights violations by extractive corporations who profit off of energy production.

As of now, COPINH continues to struggle for true justice and to push, as a first step, to break the media silence around her case and confront the irregularities that permeate the process.
May of this year will bring the expiration of the preventative detention* for the eight people detained in 2016, including the direct perpetrators of the crime as well as intermediaries such as DESA employee Sergio Rodríguez and armed forces major Mariano Díaz who coordinated the assassination and served as an instructor for the military police.

At this point the Honduran Attorney General and judicial authorities are flailing around desperately to try to move through and put a close to the case by sentencing only those who they have detained. The final arguments are expected in the case halfway through this year. Notwithstanding, the organization, the Honduran people and the international community remain unsatisfied in the face of a lack of action to capture the masterminds who are linked to the powerful and untouchable Honduran oligarchy.

It is worth mentioning that today is the swearing-in hearing for the specialists proposed by the Attorney General to analyze the telephone recordings and financial information in the national sentencing tribunal, which will decide the case.

Regarding the second point about what has changed in Honduras since her death, very little can be said. The concession remains for the hydroelectric damn ferociously defended not only by private enterprise but also by the renewable energy producers who continue to sew hate against the organizations that challenge the installation of numerous deadly projects, ruining their lucrative business.

The government wants to secure the investments of national and international corporations in this business by approving a deceitful law supposedly about “prior, free and informed consent for indigenous peoples” but has been unable to take the final step after strong questioning at a national and international level.

The power structures that protect the deadly project against which Berta Cáceres fought have strengthened themselves with electoral fraud, carried out to ensure continuation of the status quo and protection of private economic interests.

What Berta Cáceres contributed to today’s Honduras is the national uprising that continues without giving up on the same vision that would be on at the front of Berta Cáceres’s mind: the re-foundation of Honduras that no president will be able to carry out, that can only be carried out by the people, the same people who didn’t give up in the streets even as they confronted the violence of the military and their killer weapons, which is the only path to profound change for Honduras.

In the meantime COPINH is convening the “25 years of Life and Justice Gathering” for this 22nd-24th of March to deepen work around the case of comrades Berta and Gustavo and talk about the struggle to this point and what the future holds for Berta’s vision in a country that needs it now more than ever.

*The preventative detention can be extended just once for six more moths, which would expire in November of this year.

Sunday, January 21, 2018

On January 20th, 2018, the U.S.-financed Honduran military of dictator Juan Orlando Hernández shot and killed a senior citizen, a campesino, Don Telmo, in Colón, for participating in a non-violent protest against electoral fraud, repression and the consolidation of the corrupt dictatorship. What follows is a disturbing video of the last steps Don Telmo took after being shot before bleeding to death and dying, followed by a painting and poem in his honor:

BLOOD FROM THE DEPTHS OF HONDURAS

Painter/Pintor: Daniel Valladares Bustamante

by Joaquín CardozaTranslation by Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle

Don Telmo,
Grandfather in resistance
The official mouthpieces,
bought and paid for,
will pronounce
That you were a terrorist,
A vandal
Maybe even a gang-banger
to try to justify their crime,
to save their backs

ASSASSINS!!!!

Don Telmo,
This is the new Honduras
Of the festering
satraps:

Death,
Narco state,
Buy, sell,
Indignity,
Disgrace....
.
Your killing is a new milestone
For the blond, the rich
And the ignorant poor

For your children, grandchildren and the rest,
just as for our own,
As the last drop of your blood falls
On the land of this nation,
The struggle digs deep
for redemption
As the people roar
mightily in the streets:

Saturday, January 20, 2018

COPINH denounces arrest of prominent Honduran activist Edwin Espinal, captured for his participation in protests against the dictatorship[Original en español]

Tonight, while driving home, compañero Edwin Espinal was captured by members of the police along the Fuerzas Aramadas Boulevard in Tegucigalpa for his participation in the protests days before against the imposition of fraud and dictatorship by Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH).

Edwin Espinal is a well-known figure in the struggle against the dictatorial regime imposed since the 2009 coup d'etat in Honduras. His capture stems from orders by JOH the dictator to repress, demonize and criminalize the dignified protest of people who oppose the imposition of violence and betrayal.

Edwin's capture comes days after having been victim of a demonization campaign in social media, just like what has happened to our brothers Martín Fernández and Víctor Fernández from the Broad Movement for Justice and Dignity (MADJ), as well as Father Melo from Radio Progreso among a long list of sisters and brothers in struggle against the regime.

The actions by the JOH government seek to sew fear and consternation amongst the mobilized people, as has been demonstrated by the brutal displays of force by the military police and the illegal statements by FUSINA, trying to interfere with the basic right to protest.

Nonetheless, the strength of our cry as a Honduran people against the illegality and illegitimacy of JOH is clear and we are sure that nobody will rest until he falls.

While JOH's spurious electoral tribunal certifies his illegal victory, they capture and criminalize compatriots who struggle for truth and dignity.

They use an iron fist against the people, but for foreign interests they kneel down as low as they can.

COPINH demands Edwin Espinal be released immediately and holds the Honduran state accountable.

We call on the national and international community to denounce these actions of criminalization along with the series of assassinations, aggressions, campaigns of stigmatization and brutal repression by the state against a mobilized people.

COPINH calls for a deepening of national mobilization against fraud and dictatorship.

The more they repress, the more we struggle and organize.

January 19th, 2018.

With the ancestral strength of Berta, Lempira, Mota and Etempica our voices rise, full of life, justice, dignity, freedom and peace!

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News Sources / Fuentes de Noticias

Radio Progreso has radio updates (Spanish only) directly from the from the front-lines of the resistance in Honduras.

Une TV is one of the only independent national TV stations in Honduras

Rights Action has been doing good reporting and commentary as events unfold and has people on the ground monitoring the situation. They are also a reliable vehicle through which to get money to the organizations fighting for the restoration of democracy in Honduras.

Defensores en línea is the best (Spanish-only) online source for regularly updated information on the violation of human rights in Honduras.

Spanish - website of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras about the struggle of the Garifuna people and other resistance and environmental struggles.

School of the Americas Watch has good background information on the coup-plotters training at the Georgia-based School of the Americas / (also known as the School of Assasins) as well as news updates on the coup and a call to action.